IT25-T Val di Mazia

The Matschertal/ Val di Mazia, is a valley with a surface of 100 km2 and a length of 15 km. It is branching off the main Valley, Vinschgau, situated in the westernmost part of South Tyrol, in the Central Alps, in the northernmost province of Italy. The four LTER sites "Muntatschinig", "Saldur River Catchment", "Saldur River" and "Proglacial area Matsch" are distributed from the lower reaches of the valley at 950 m to the nival zone of glacier Matscher Ferner (app. 3000 m a.s.l.). The peak Weißkugel/Palla Bianca (3738 m), which dominates the Matscher Ferner, closes the valley off to the northeast. The presence of a glacier enables investigations on the role of glacial runoff into the water regime of a typical inner-Alpine valley and, due to the closed catchment, the Matsch valley is suited for parameterizing hydrological models. With an average of 525 mm of precipitation per year (at 1500 m a.s.l.), the Matschertal is one of the driest valleys in the Alps. The aridity may be representative of future scenarios in other regions and thus, the Matschertal can serve as a reference area. The main village Matsch is located at 1600 m and has a population of 458 people. The valley has very few other settlements and is primarily used for farming. The range of land use types is representative of agricultural practices in mountainous regions of the Alps, including cultivated fields, poor- and high-yield meadows, pastureland and typical low-density larch forests. Over centuries of land-use a landscape mosaic has developed which is strongly dependent of human action. This is why we developed a holistic landscape approach with 4 research sites covering several spatial scales and an altitudinal range for our mainly climate change related studies in Val Mazia/Matscher Tal. First ecological investigations in Matschertal began in 2008, while the first automated microclimate station was installed in 2009. The original goal was to investigate the effects of a changing climate on specific microclimates, plant diversity and the yield of typical grasslands in mountainous regions. Investigations follow an integrated approach, both over time (historical analyses, current processes and future scenarios) and across spatial scales (single test plots to entire landscapes and across ecosystem types). An altitudinal transect within the human influenced catchment is used for climate simulation experiments e.g. for grassland transplantation experiments to model the impact of warmer temperatures on plot samples. Some parameters have been mapped periodically, such as vegetation, landscape type or soil type.